Okay . . . thus far, there have been two "articles" published under Issue #360 of Dragon . . . Fortress of the Yaun-ti, and Ecology of a Death Knight. When accessing the article's on-line, if you scroll to the very bottom of the page you can download a zip file containing a PDF copy of the "article".
After downloading and reviewing the PDFs I have really only one comment to say . . Wow! Who ever is in charge of layout over there at Dragon insider needs to be fired. No, wait, they should be flogged, and then fired. Grantd I only skimmed through the 25 pages of material (Fortress being 15, Ecology being 10), but there are very un-natural breaks to the formating of the pages. There's even multiple pictures that are split between two pages. I understand the desire to provide a pdf of your content, but seriously, put it in a useable form . . .
I guess I really should be posting this on the WotC forum, huh . . .
My worst fears for Dungeon & Dragon are being realized :/
I had hoped (against all evidence to the contrary) that WotC would handle this online initiative well -- after all, they are professional publishers.
Nope. They snatched the magazines from the trusted hands of Paizo and are making it fit for use only as toilet paper (digital TP?).
A few apologies here -- I've been unremittingly hostile on this topic, but we've come to expect quality support for this game, and WotC has crushed that. To be fair, 4/e sounds promising, but they seem to be doing everything they can to make me find another game before it hits the shelves.
No more Paizo, no more etools, no more PCGen, no more LG, no more 30 years of D&D cosmology, no more Dragon/Dungeon back issues in pdf, no more hope of quality products supporting the game...
My comments aren't contributing to any discussion, they're just letting me vent :/
No worries... I feel much the same way... I had expected that they would actually take the time for layout for the pdfs, and it seems like they really just didn't care.
- Ashavan
It's almost as if they were intentionally trying to bury the magazines...
Kobold Press
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It's almost as if they were intentionally trying to bury the magazines...
No, they're just having trouble with their launch. I think the PDF option of the page is just some lame plug-in that auto-generates a PDF from HTML. As you've seen, the results are miserable.
I hope (but can't prove) that the compiled PDF will be better.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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No, they're just having trouble with their launch. I think the PDF option of the page is just some lame plug-in that auto-generates a PDF from HTML. As you've seen, the results are miserable.I hope (but can't prove) that the compiled PDF will be better.
I agree it's a launch problem, but it's still inept. They've had months to test the technology prior to inflicting it on the the viewing public, and should have worked out the bugs prior to launch.
WotC has a long way to go to convince people they can handle technology well enough to become a web-driven company.
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I don't care so much about the magazine, but these problems do not bode well at all for their Digital Initiative. They shipped a pretty poor character creator with the 3.0 Player's Handbook, and then handed it off to etools. That took quite a while to get going, and was less than stellar at release too.
Now their Digital Initiative is supposed to be even more useful to the game. I'm wondering whether they're even going to be able to measure up to the virtual tabletops that are already out there...
Drew Garrett
If you look at the Fiasco that has been the (non)launch of Magic Online v3, and the reasons that lead to v2 being buggy but workable, you'll see that whoever is running the show at WotC has NO IDEA how technology works. Their Magic folks and writers at least understand how to do online content, but they don't lie and claim its a magazine. (They have run magazines out of business, by the way, but by providing high-quality, daily content for free, not yanking licenses).
Edit: Full disclosure - I do play magic online, because I prefer it to playing magic with paper and it's a fun game. But their floundering about with software issues never ceases to astound me.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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If you look at the Fiasco that has been the (non)launch of Magic Online v3, and the reasons that lead to v2 being buggy but workable, you'll see that whoever is running the show at WotC has NO IDEA how technology works. Their Magic folks and writers at least understand how to do online content, but they don't lie and claim its a magazine. (They have run magazines out of business, by the way, but by providing high-quality, daily content for free, not yanking licenses).
Edit: Full disclosure - I do play magic online, because I prefer it to playing magic with paper and it's a fun game. But their floundering about with software issues never ceases to astound me.
I've always considered Version 2 to be the fiasco. It runs, but barely. Version 1 ran fairly well and was relatively problem free. The launch of Version 2 was horrible. It crashed all the time, it didn't have the features they previewed, and it can't expand in size. I've got multiple accounts on MTGO and I can no longer trade between them because you're not allowed to have more than one account logged in per IP server to keep from crashing the system.
Version 3 is fun though. You get to draft for free! But it has been in development for approximately three decades. And is still too buggy for a launch.
I didn't start playing until v2, but I'm given to understand that the reason v1 was less buggy had to do with the fact there were just fewer people using it (and fewer cards to make rules interaction bugs). But htat's beside the point. The point is that Wizards likes to promise that machines can do everything and then not deliver. I'm reminded of the GenCon digital table preview: anyone expect that they're going to end up with something strictly worse than FantasyGrounds/OpenRPG/MapTool, except with 3d graphics where you can't add your own models?
It's almost as if they were intentionally trying to bury the magazines...No, they're just having trouble with their launch. I think the PDF option of the page is just some lame plug-in that auto-generates a PDF from HTML. As you've seen, the results are miserable.
I hope (but can't prove) that the compiled PDF will be better.
that my friend is bad and lazy editing. Some one should have checked the PDF before putting out there as a link. No excuses for a professional outfit like WotC. If I were the boss I would be pissed.
I think I understand their logic. I don't like it but I think I understand it.
As far as I can tell it runs something like this:
"Great! Electronic publishing means we can produce material and not have as tight a dead line!"
"It will be cheaper and give us full control over the official brand at a time of termoil and rebranding."
"We can provide instant correction of errors and errata."
"It will draw people to our website so we can funnel them to important notices and products."
"Though not intended it has the marketing bonus of keeping new players farther away from 3rd party publishers as there is no official brand but WoTC."
But I could be wrong. I don't think that the people that made these decisions did so for evil reasons. But I do think that there is a few asses in their system that are going to maximize the options (ie a few LE marketing and managing officials) and the system techs, editors and designers are probally overloaded with work. No excuse mind you as it is not professional at all. But I blame the higher ups for their lack of experience or forsight or possible even caring.
But on a personal note, it's not a magazine for the month if the complete version isn't available till the end of the month you cretins. It would then be the next month's magazine that you let people read/perview in pieces for a month.
But I could be wrong. I don't think that the people that made these decisions did so for evil reasons. But I do think that there is a few asses in their system that are going to maximize the options (ie a few LE marketing and managing officials) and the system techs, editors and designers are probally overloaded with work. No excuse mind you as it is not professional at all. But I blame the higher ups for their lack of experience or forsight or possible even caring.
I would guess somewhere between upper managment and and the system tech guys, the ball was dropped. Personally, I blame the editor, he should be responsible for what the magazine's content and look. If he is to busy to do the job than an assisstant needs to get it down. If the assisstant can't get it done, then he picked the wrong guy and should take responsability. Kim Mohan should be embarrassed with the launch of Dragon e-zine. Yeah he has done great work in the past (the boxes of Dragon magazines in my garage, have his name all overthem), but that is no excuss for the crap they putting out as dragon magazine. If I were his boss, I would chew him out. Of course that is assuming his boss cares.
But on a personal note, it's not a magazine for the month if the complete version isn't available till the end of the month you cretins. It would then be the next month's magazine that you let people read/perview in pieces for a month.
yeah that is how I feel.